Do
you really want a four-day week
by Sid Ross and Ed Kiester
Parade Magazine, September 1957

Will
you ever work a four-day week?

Vice
President Nixon thinks you will. During last fall's Presidential
campaign, he predicted
an industry-wide four-day schedule “In
the not too distant future.”

Walter
Reuther, president of the United Auto Workers, thinks you
should. Next year, he has announced,
he will ask auto manufacturers
to place
workers on a shorter workweek without reducing their pay. Battle
lines already are being drawn.

But
do you really want a four-day week? Is it really “inevitable,” as
the UAW likes to suggest, in view of automation and increased
production? Or is it more likely to disrupt all of America — its
jobs, its homes, its schools, its likes and dislikes?

One
of the “hottest” controversies in the U.S.
today is wrapped up in the answers to these questions.
To find
them, PARADE
talked to industrialists, labor leaders, Government spokesmen,
economists, sociologists, psychologists, educators, clergymen— all
of whom have a stake in a four-day week. Briefly, here
are highlights from
what they had to say:

Some
Differences of Opinion

•
Most Americans don’t want a four-day week, even at the same pay,
according to the Trendex News Poll and the American Institute of Public
Opinion.
•
Increased productivity will make the four-day week a strong possibility
by 1970, a Department of Labor expert says, if workers prefer it to
extra income.
•
A four-day week might be short-sighted. We Americans, some economists
and industry groups claim, could double our standard of living in 25
years by staying on a five-day week.
•
If a change comes, it will be gradual, beginning in assembly-line industries
and working down to service jobs like police, hospitals, stores.
•
Many workers probably would take a second job in preference to a third
day off.
•
Some businesses probably would have to adjust, but others would boom:
sports equipment, vacation resorts, garden supplies, gasoline, autos.
•
Prices probably would increase further; crime rates might rise. Family
breakups might be more widespread. But, conversely, some families probably
would be drawn wore tightly together.
•
The whole question may be decided not by workers but by their wives.
"Do you think," one psychiatrist asked PARADE, “that
American women can stand to have their husbands underfoot
three days in a row?”

And
women, according to the American Institute of Public Opinion
(the Gallup Poll),
are more opposed to the shortened
workweek
than men.
Gallup’s figures show that 67 per cent oppose the
idea (after all, their workweek wouldn’t be reduced)
while only 54 per cent of men do.

Most
workers told Trendex they need more income, not more free
time. When
the poll suggested a choice between
a four-day
week
at present
pay levels or a five-day week with increased pay,
most workers voted for the pay raise. Businessmen point
also to Akron’s rubber workers,
who work a six-hour-day, six-day week.

They
are openly opposed to returning to a five-day schedule. Reason:
More than a third of them use their
free time
to hold down a second
job.

Some
industrialists— and some labor leaders —think
the Reuther campaign is aimed not at more time
but at more money. (Ford’s
top negotiator, John Bugas, has called the plan “a
smokescreen,”)
The UAW, these sources say, wants to work the same
number of hours but wants overtime pay to start
earlier. In any case, they contend,
the auto industry is unlikely to grant a four-day
week next year.

“
We could work a one-day week right now,” says a spokesman for
the National Association of Manufacturers,
if we wanted to give up a lot of things. But of course no one does.
Adds Dr. Solomon Fabricant,
a New York University economist: “I doubt
that a four-day week is likely in the near
future without a reduction in pay — and
people won’t pay the price.”

But
by 1970 things may be different. Increasing
productivity will make four days at slightly
higher pay a strong
possibility, according
to
Charles D. Stewart. deputy assistant secretary
for standards and statistics of the U.S.
Department of
Labor. Even
then, would you
want to work
four days—or shoot for more money by
working five?

Three
Months Off at a Time?

The
answer: No one is certain. Some union officials think you
might prefer to stay
on a five-day
week and take
the extra
time off in
long week ends or three months off every
five years. When Trendex asked
one machinist how be felt about a four-day
week, he replied, “With
a four-day week, I’d have another
day at home with nothing to do.”

What
would you do with an extra day off?
Many businessmen predict a further boom
in leisure-time
industries.
More families would
tackle the mushrooming outdoor sports,
like boating, skiing, skin-diving.

Husbands
would attempt new and more involved do-it-yourself projects.
Movies
would
draw more customers, more
television sets would
be sold, sports events would play
to bigger houses.

The
nation would need more highways because more people would
use their
spare time
to travel. More cars and
more gasoline
would be
sold; vacation
resorts would be overrun. (But
one businessman points out, logically,
that more leisure
requires more spending
money.
Could you afford
a four-day week?)

A
switch to four days’ work would give you more time
with your family, but this is a two-edged
sword, PARADE was told repeatedly. One psychiatrist predicted
a four-day week would mean more broken homes. “There
are a lot of marginal families
based on keeping out of each other’s
way,” he told PARADE. “Husband
and wife are thrown together
just two days a week; they can
stand
that. But the extra day might
be enough to push them over the
brink.”

For
other families, another psychiatrist says, three
days together could
be a great boon “It could
be the answer to the problem
of father-son relationship
we see so much of now,” he
says. The Rev. Dr. Ralph W.
Stockman, of National Radio
Pulpit, adds: “The
American family could well
be drawn more closely together,
and stronger moral fiber might
be the result. But with three
days of leisure, Americans
might face many, many more
temptations.”

Dr.
Stockman does not subscribe to the idea
that work is virtuous
and
play sinful.
It’s simply that, mathematically,
there’s
more time to be tempted.
Unfortunately, psychiatrists
told PARADE,
many people do regard work
as “good,” and
play as “bad.”

These
are victims of what psychiatry
calls ‘the Sunday
neurosis.” At
work, they feel satisfied,
convinced they really are
worth something; at rest,
they are gnawed by feelings
of guilt.

One
psychiatrist who has specialized in
the psychological
overtones
of leisure believes
Americans can’t
cope with three days
off unless
they have definite interests
and hobbies with specific
goals.
For them to get the most
from it, their spare
hours will have to be
planned — by
themselves or others.

Dr.
Eli Ginsberg, a Columbia
University economist,
once studied a group
of movie projectionists
who worked a
four-day schedule.
He
found the
same leisure-time pattern
as for a two-day week
end— only more
of it.

“
Time definitely did not hang heavy on their hands,” Dr. Ginsberg
says.

“
These men occupied themselves helping their wives, or with do-it-yourself
projects, or watching
ball games.”

But
one psychiatrist predicts further
scrambling of
the jobs of husband
and wife: “If
the husband is
home three days
a week and spends
his time washing
dishes or cleaning
the living room,
how can a child
tell who’s
mother and who’s
father?”

One
of the biggest
dislocations
might be in
the schools.
Recently Dr.
William E.
Stirton, vice
president of
the University
of Michigan,
urged educators
to plan
now for an
avalanche of
students as
workweeks shorten,
Other
educators also
anticipate
a boom in adult
education — either
by workers
looking for “something
to do” or
by those trying
to reach executive
ranks (where,
one hard-pressed
executive told
PARADE acidly, “they
can then work
60 or 70 hours
a week”).

Will
the schools
follow the
pattern and
cut
back to four
days? Many
educators
don’t
see how the
number of
school days could
be reduced
without children
being short
changed.
Dr. Earl J. McGrath,
former U.S.
commissioner
of education,
points out
that many
elementary schools
already are
experimenting
with even
longer school terms.

From
parents, however,
Dr. McGrath
anticipates
pressure
to bring
schools
into line
with the
workweek.
Absenteeism
may
increase
as parents
utilize
three-day week
ends for
family
trips.

“
At the moment,” Dr. McGrath says, “most educators would
oppose
shortening the school week. It’s not the same as speeding
up an
assembly line.”

To
many experts,
this
is
the big
stumbling
block
to
a four-day
week.
As
Reuther begins
dickering
with
the
Big Three
of
the
auto industry,
you’ll
hear
more
and
more
of
the
UAW
arguments:
that
a four-day
week
would
spread
jobs,
that
automation
is
displacing
workers,
that
continually
increasing
productivity
means
workers
are
making
more
goods
in
less
time,
and
this
savings
in
time
should
go
to
the
workers.

Today,
however,
nearly
50
per
cent
of
Americans
are
providing
services,
not
manufacturing
products.
Automatic
assembly
lines
don’t
include
them.
Yet
if
factories
should
cutback
to
a
four-day
week,
inevitably
a
cry
would
go
up
for
a
four-day
week
in
these
fields,
too.

One
economist told
PARADE a
cut in
hours would
mean another
rise in
prices — and
again the
service workers
would be
the victims.
Dr. William
Haber, a
University of
Michigan economist,
suggests that
the most
practical course
would be
to continue
a five-day
week. American
living standards
would increase
and the
nation could
mop up
some of
its shortages — in
highways and
schools, for
instance.

The
Labor Department’s Stewart thinks industry might
drop back to a four-and-a-half-day week, then to four
days, just as the six-day
week went to five and a half, then five. Other experts
agree that the progress of the shorter workweek — if
and when it comes —will
be uneven, touching an industry here and there and
leaving
others on five days and some even on six.

Reuther’s
demands have dramatized the issue. But no expert interviewed
by PARADE believed a switch to four days of eight hours
each is practical now, or even five years from now.

Both
the National
Association of
Manufacturers and
the U.S.
Chamber of
Commerce have
assigned study
committees to
the subject,
knowing that
it will
crop up
frequently in
the future.
(Other unions
already have
taken their
cue from
the UAW
and made
similar demands.)
They want
to know,
among other
things, whether
Americans really
want to
work only
four days.

“
Maybe what we’ll see is people trying to hold down two jobs,” says
one industry spokesman. “Instead of a five-day week, they’ll
choose a seven-day week.” Like many business figures, he feels
that the abbreviated week will be theoretically possible someday — maybe
in 20 years, maybe in 30 years, maybe more. Whether it will ever
come true in fact is another question.

Will
you ever
work a
four-day week?
You can
tomorrow, if
you want
to. But
do you
really want
to? These,
as the
experts see
them, are
the terms.